Unpaid teacher salaries mean millions of Yemeni children may not finish school year
Child labour, Child marriage, Children in conflicts, Education in emergencies, Refugees and internally displaced people, Safe schools
Three-quarters of the war-torn country's teachers have not been paid for seven months - meaning many cannot afford to travel to work or pay for basic necessities for their families.
Two years of war may deprive a聽generation of Yemeni children of an education, the United Nations has warned.
That puts them at greater risk of being married off or聽recruited as child soldiers for a conflict which has killed at聽least 10,000 people.
Months of unpaid salaries have affected over three-quarters聽of the impoverished country’s teachers, meaning up to 4.5聽million children may not finish the school year,聽UNICEF聽Representative in Yemen Mertixell Relano told a press conference聽in the capital Sanaa.
“At the moment we have more than 166,000 teachers in the聽country that have not received a salary since October last year.聽This is more or less 73% of the total number of teachers聽in the country,” Relano said.
“Those children that are not in school, they are at risk of聽being recruited (for military service), or the girls might be at聽risk of being married earlier,” she added.
War in Yemen
- Since March 2015, more than 1400 children have been killed and thousands more injured in attacks on homes, schools and hospitals.
- Two million children are not in education and about 1600 schools are unfit for use.
The crisis largely began last year when the聽internationally-recognised government shifted Yemen’s central聽bank out of Sanaa, which is controlled by the armed Houthi聽movement with which it is at war.
The government says the Houthis looted the bank and that it聽is trying to make all payments despite what it calls Houthi聽obstruction of the transfers – charges the group denies.
Seven months of salaries remain in arrears, public sector聽employees in Houthi-controlled northern lands say, making travel聽to work and paying for basic necessities more difficult.
“Money is the backbone of life,” lamented Hoda Al Khoulani,聽a teacher at a children’s school in Sanaa.
“Without it, I don’t think anyone can live and there will be聽suffering. We’re almost begging.”
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